Welcome to the blog of the California Teachers Empowerment Network. CTEN is a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the public at large with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Dear
Colleague,

In
last month’s newsletter, we mentioned that education spending levels are at an
all-time high.

One of our subscribers suggested
that we post California’s spending numbers. There are actually two sets of figures
that are used: one for actual spending (we are 41st nationally at
$8,667 per pupil) and one is adjusted for cost of living. Using this formula, we
are 47th nationally. For more, go to
http://california-in-crisis.news21.com/node/24As I wrote last
month,for a comparison of years past, go
to the National Center for Education Statistics website for some surprising
numbers – http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=66

The
California Charter Schools Association (CCSA) is celebrating the 20th
anniversary of the charter school movement with the “California’s Charter Schools: 20 Years of
Reinventing Public Education” campaign.

According
to CCSA:

Charters are
tuition-free public schools.

·
Serve all student populations and are designed to boast student achievement.

·
Can make innovative changes to meet a student’s individual needs.

·
Have more flexibility and greater accountability.

The schools are
flourishing, engaging more students every year, and giving families and kids
more educational options than ever before.

Since the
signing of the charter school legislation, California has been on the leading
edge of the innovative and fast-growing charter public school movement. There
are currently 982 schools across the state, which serve more than 412,000
students.

By
now most of you are aware that there is a new (and in some quarters
controversial) education movie playing all over the country. Won’t Back Down centers around two determined mothers, one a bartender and
the other a teacher, who team up and try to transform their failing public
school in Pittsburgh. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy,
administrative corruption and the teachers union, they devote their lives to
making a difference in the education and future of their children.

It’s a very good film, with a
narrative in which the educational establishment is presented in a realistic
and honest way – the portrayal of good teachers, bad teachers and mediocre ones
and the parents’ frustrations in dealing with the system’s bureaucracy are
quite true to life. The union leaders are not caricatures, but are like many
that I knew and worked with during my long teaching career. Here is the trailer
- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0J5-w7a78Xg

Mike Antonucci had a very
interesting post recently which included some rather startling information.
Here is one of the more provocative bullet points:

*That CTA Board explore options to
generate additional resources from both internal and especially external
sources to counter the vast resources available to our political opponents due
to the Citizens United decision.

Rationale: CTA needs to recognize we
are in a war we do not currently have the resources to win. Since the Citizens
United decision our political opponents have been able to raise unlimited
amounts of money via “Independent Expenditure Only Committees,” popularly known
as “Super PACs.” Although CTA currently has such a committee, it has only been
utilized on an ad hoc basis. We need to aggressively pursue consistent funding
sources. These could include entertainers, professional athletes or other
wealthy individuals with possible ties to public education. CTA-retired members
could be a valuable resource to assist in this effort.

A report from our friends at the Education Action Group tells us that,

Prior to the 2010-11 school year, the
San Francisco Unified School District made a series of painful spending cuts in
an effort to eliminate a $113 million budget deficit.

Teachers, principals and support staff were laid off, according to the media
reports. The school year was shortened by four days, teachers were given unpaid
furlough days and many programs like summer school, art, music, and special
education were trimmed back.Yet somehow the district found the
resources to spend $134 million on salaries for athletic coaches and other
extracurricular labor costs, $44.8 million on health insurance for union
employees (employees only contributed a combined $14.7 million), more than
$800,000 on national board certification bonuses for teachers, and more than
$500,000 on retention bonuses for teachers.

Final reminder: Ifyou are considering becoming an agency fee payer, it is a two-step
process. First, you resign from the union (thus becoming an agency fee payer)
and then request that the political part of your dues be returned to you.
Sample letters for both steps are available here - http://www.ctenhome.org/knowMembership.htm#exoptions(First
timers, you must complete both steps by November 15th to get a full
rebate.)

If you already are an agency fee payer, you must request
your rebate this year (and every year!) by November 15th. If you are
even one day late, you will not get a penny back. Also, because liability
insurance is very important for teachers, we suggest joining the Association of
American Educators http://www.aaeteachers.org/or Christian Educators Association http://www.ceai.orgBoth AAE and CEAI are professional
organizations, not unions, and are apolitical. (Also, teachers who mention CTEN
when they sign up with AAE for the first time will get a $30 discount off the
regular $180 first year membership.)

A repeat from last month, in case
you missed it…regarding information about how teachers can start up their own
independent teacher association, and the details of a lawsuit that could affect
all teachers in CA: I have pasted in the salient information at the end of this
newsletter. If you contact either of the
parties, please keep CTEN in the loop, via CC or separate email; it will help
us keep track of our members’ activities and involvement.

In any event, if you enjoy these letters and
find them informative, please pass them along to your colleagues. We know that
there are many independent-minded teachers in California who are looking for alternative
sources of information.

If you would like to see us address certain
issues, topics, etc. in these newsletters or on our website – http://www.ctenhome.org - please let us know.

As always, we at CTEN want to thank you for your
ongoing support and feedback.

Sincerely,

Larry Sand
CTEN President

------------------------

A Better Model

The big teachers’ unions have been taking from
teachers for decades, often pushing policies that build their membership and
power but don’t necessarily improve working conditions or wages for the very
teachers they claim to represent – let alone improve the educational system.
The power of CTA in California seems too
big, too entrenched to ever change. But what if there was a better model, and
the shift to that model could happen one school district at a time?

In California,
individual teachers can opt out of paying a portion of their union dues by
becoming an agency fee payer.That can
save a teacher hundreds of dollars a year, but they are still forced to pay as
much as $700 a year or more. Teachers who become agency fee payers also lose
many benefits of union membership, including the right to vote on their
contracts.

The Better Model is an independent public
teacher association that controls its own destiny. By contracting out for
expert legal and labor representation, but retaining for its members all policy
and decision-making authority, teachers can easily save half of their current
dues ($500/year or more) and get better and more responsive representation than
the big union model.

CTA
apologists will say that such a model would be risky and leave the teachers
unprotected by the vast resources of the statewide organization. The thing is
that tens of thousands of California
public employees are already doing it. Hundreds of public employee associations
are independent - meaning, they are simply not attached to CTA, SEIU, AFSCME, or one of the other large
national and international unions. Public employee associations represent
California public employees that work for the state, counties, cities and
special districts, including police officers, nurses, managers, firefighters,
general employees, and everything in between. There are even public school
teachers operating under this model, including traditional public and charter
schools.

This model works. Ask around. Chances are that
your local police officers’ association or deputy sheriffs’ association are not
affiliated with a statewide or national union (though they probably belong to a
lobbying organization and/or legal defense fund) and they pay substantially
less than teachers do in dues.

The truth is that CTA
and CFT have had a virtual monopoly of teacher representation in California. While we can
debate the long term success or failure of such representation statewide and
nationally, there is no doubt that locally, the big union model is not
responsive, not independent…but it is very expensive.

California
Independent Teachers was founded by labor and legal professionals that have
been working for independent employee associations for decades. We know that
this works; we make our livings from making sure that we provide superior value
and responsive representation to our association clients.

If you are interested in talking to someone with
CIT about their model and about
the steps that need to be taken to decertify CTA
in your district, go to www.caindependentteachers.com
or call Rafael Ruano at (888) 993-1600.

Students Matter Case

Students Matter was formed to bring an education
reform case here in California.
The purpose of the litigation is to remove barriers from the education code
that make it nearly impossible to identify and reward quality teachers and
almost equally as impossible to remove those who persistently underperform.
Students Matter believes so strongly in the critical importance of teachers to
improving student achievement, we want to ensure that there is a quality
teacher in every classroom.

We filed our case, Vergara v. California, on May 15 on behalf of eight
students currently enrolled in California
public schools. The case challenges three provisions of the education code: the
process for granting teacher's permanent employment, mandated seniority-based
layoffs, and teacher dismissal procedures. For more information, please visit
the Students Matter website studentsmatter.org,
where you'll find recent press coverage and editorials, and read the attached
FAQ and statement of support from Los
Angeles Unified Superintendent Dr. John Deasy.

The voices of courageous teachers who stand up
for school reform help us bring attention to the issues at the heart of our
case and ultimately help us help those who matter the most: students.

If you would like to get involved in any
capacity, either through contributing your story to an op-ed piece, sharing
your insight on background with reporters or simply passing our information
along to interested friends and colleagues, please email Jaclyn Matthews at jmatthews@griffinschein.com.